The NHL Held an LGBTQ+ Initiative...During Black History Month

The National Hockey League has designated February its Hockey Is For Everyone (HIFE) month, a broad initiative that "reaffirms that the official policy of the sport is one of inclusion on the ice, in the locker rooms and in the stands." As part of the campaign, the league has appointed 31 club ambassadors, one from each team, and eight special ambassadors, including the first openly transgender player in professional hockey, the NHL's first Canadian indigenous player, a former army sergeant who founded a hockey program for wounded veterans, and a Sikh broadcaster who commentates in Punjabi and English. HIFE is a wide nod to diversity, but it also coincides with — and to many, overshadows — Black History Month.

This coincidence looks especially bad given the NHL's history of racial homogeneity. Between the 1917 and 1999 seasons, only 36 black players competed in the league. The first black referee didn't take the ice until 2001, and the first black player didn't join the Hockey Hall of Fame until 2003. In 2013, roughly 3% of Stanley Cup viewers were black, and last year, of the more than 700 active players in the league, only 32 were black, despite nearly two decades of outreach and recruitment.

In 1998, the NHL launched the HIFE campaign, then called the NHL Diversity Program, and appointed as its diversity ambassador Willie O'Ree, a Canadian hockey player who broke the NHL's color barrier in 1958. O'Ree has served in the post ever since, and at this year's all-star game, he was honored with a $100,000 donation from the NHL and the Tampa Bay Lighting, which he gave back to the HIFE program.

That money will help HIFE continue to give $50,000 in grants to 30 programs that work with minority youth, providing them not only with ice time and equipment, but also classes in college exploration and life skills. In 2016, as part of G.O.A.L. (Get Out And Learn) in Chicago, 90,000 kids from 160 schools participated in a program that includes practices with the Chicago Police Department, according to an article in Rolling Stone. "About 20 officers are involved," Annie Camins, the senior director of fan development for the Chicago Blackhawks, toldRolling Stone. "They don't come out in their police gear. They come out in their CPD hockey gear. They try to break down that fear of law enforcement and show them the game of hockey."

It is, of course, easier to facilitate a hockey game than it is to ask why minority youth in Chicago are afraid of police officers to begin with. But, the NHL has never made any pretensions of being a social justice organization. It is an entertainment company, which may help explain the league's extensive LGBTQ+ activities during Black History Month, including Gay Pride networking events, a gay men's chorus singing "The Star-Spangled Banner," and a Q&A with Harrison Browne, the openly trans player.

From a marketing standpoint, this push toward LGBTQ+ inclusion is a savvy play. According to a 2013 Nielsen survey, adult gays and lesbians are 51% more likely than other adults online to have watched sports content over the Internet. Making the atmosphere at the rink seem more inclusive may activate fans who are already passionate about the NHL but who may not feel comfortable at games where a player can repeatedly call a referee a "cocksucker" and be fined only 0.1% of his annual salary.

Based on the merchandise available to LGBTQ+ fans, the NHL is also betting that they are eager to spend money. In a recent game, a goalie for the Arizona Coyotes wore a helmet painted with a tiny logo in the bottom corner for You Can Play, a nonprofit to increase LGBTQ+ visibility in sports and one of the main HIFE partners. The team then auctioned the helmet, along with a meet and greet, for $3,000. Fans with a more modest budget can visit the HIFE store, which has 389 items, including rainbow-printed versions of each team's logo, special Pride stick tape, and sweatshirts that say "LOVE" using stick tape and pucks. While a few pieces are not LGBTQ-specific, there are no items exclusively for people of color.

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This lopsided merchandising is ironic considering that, while there are few players of color, there are zero openly non-straight male players in the NHL. However, this absence makes the NHL's diversity initiative far easier. Instead of having to invite a gay player and his boyfriend onto the ice to be honored, the league can outsource the activism to nonprofits and straight ambassadors. And because queerness is just an abstraction — not a tangible presence in the locker room — inclusiveness can be voluntary. For example, the league says that "more than 100 NHL players will wrap their sticks with Pride Tape," a display of solidarity that would've been unthinkable a decade ago. But, there are more than 700 active players in the league, meaning less than one in seven is willing to make even a minor symbolic nod to inclusion.

This is not to say that the NHL's efforts are insincere or merely symbolic. At one Pride night alone, the Buffalo Sabres donated $5,000 to both Gay & Lesbian Youth Services of Western New York and the Pride Center of Western New York. Queer visibility, especially at a major sporting event, is still controversial. Moreover, it's difficult to blame the NHL for the absence of an openly queer player. While it's statistically likely that there's at least one in the league, he may have myriad reasons why he chooses not to come out, only some of which the NHL has control over. In 2005, the NHL became the first of the Big Five sports to include a clause in its collective bargaining agreement with the players’ association forbidding discrimination based on sexual orientation.

However, the HIFE campaign's sprawling, "all lives matter" approach to diversity speaks to the difference between inclusion and activism. Especially now that same-sex marriage is legal and other pressing LGBTQ+ issues have been pushed to the margins of national discourse, the dreaded gay agenda is far less radical than, say, kneeling during the national anthem to protest police brutality or refusing to accept President Trump's invitation to the White House — both of which the league has discouraged players from doing.

At a press conference last May, the NHL commissioner, Gary Bettman, said, "When [players are] showing up for work to participate in a game that people are focused on, care about, pay a lot of money to attend, then it should be all about the game. That block of time should be apolitical, and we can use our platforms to demonstrate diversity [and] inclusiveness." As HIFE month continues, and the league prioritizes some diversity and inclusiveness over others, it's important to keep in mind what is considered political — and what is comfortably benign.

Spenser Mestel's biggest claim to fame is competing on season seven of American Ninja Warrior. Ever since, he's been writing about sports, fitness, and queer issues, and his work has appeared in The Atlantic, Rolling Stone, Men's Health, and elsewhere.

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